It always seems so light to start out, but hanging on to a moderately heavy bar for 15/12/9 reps of clean and jerk is so much harder than 30 reps of Grace, also a moderate weight bar, but you can let go of the thing.

Got the 15 though the struggle was real. Only hit 10 of the 12 and 7 of the 9. Forearms were fried each set. Darn, this is a tough one.

Snatching from the blocks, a bunch of gymnastics holds and then this. A lot of fun.

only made it 4 rounds with the 6@30# and 12@20# rep scheme. Decided to drop to 4@30# and 8@20#. Do you know how light a 20# ball feels after throwing a 30# ball? Even at 8 or 12 reps it felt like I was tossing a 14# ball.

Burpees to target. Wow did I forget how tough these can be. Had to get feet underneath me and actually jump. Totally different than sloppy no jump or bar facing burpees.

If I don’t place significantly better in the 2017 Open there’s something seriously wrong with this world.

First time using the yoke. Went with 285# and bumped it to 315# for the last round. Definitely could have gone higher but it was good to feel it out a bit this time. Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other and breathing. One hell of a trap massage though….

Rope climbs were pretty darn good. After some initial flubs I got down to only needing 2 pulls which saves a lot of energy and time. Plus, I bought a shin skin which was great especially since my rope burn leg is also the shin that I slammed on the failed box jump yesterday. Protects much better than just a long sock.

Midline work was really tough. Shoulders have been worked lately and holding knees up (couldn’t do L-sit for this long). Holding suspended works the shoulders as well as the core. And the core. Did I mention it works the core?

I really did NOT want to work out tonight. Plan was to workout in the morning. Left the house at 5:00am. On the drive in I realized that I had too many open items to hit the gym first, so I drove past the box and straight to the office. It wasn’t fun getting to the office at 5:20am, but I would have been dwelling on work stuff all workout if I had gone to the box.

Warmed up on the assault bike. Did the mobility stuff. Broke out my rope and wanted to do some dubs which were not on the plan. First few sucked. Then I found a rhythm – new PR, 61 consecutive double unders. Did some more dubs.

Finally found my way to a rack. Did the jerk drill. Wow, the dip really is the start of a good jerk! OK, I technically knew that, but I got up to 90% of my jerk PR without even trying. Heck, my form was horrendous, but my hip drive really launched the bar. Just for fun, I did dubs during my breaks between sets.

Skipped the jerk recoveries. Skipped the 5 minutes of handstand hold.

At this point a guy tracked me down, “Ron! Your name is Ron, right?” I’d seen him around but how did he know my name? Weird. Then he told me that I’d given him some rowing advice (technically NOT instacoaching if it was in person…). Later he had video’d himself and seen what I was talking about – where his form was breaking down. He’d taken 15 seconds per 500 off his time with just a few simple changes.

Not gonna lie. That felt good. It’s awesome to be able to help.

HSPU negatives. Last time I did these they were tough. 20 of them was going to be a huge mountain. I bought along my counter to keep my rep count honest.

They didn’t suck. I actually felt strong doing them. WTF???

That made me feel good. Still, 20 reps was not easy. My last reps were my most legit.

After taking a week off to enjoy New Orleans and hit our bi-annual family reunion (thanks CrossFit NOLA for helping me keep my sanity), I’ve been racing to get caught up at the office and prep for a big launch. A while back someone had asked what it took to make it into the top 50 in each Master’s age group, and, well, that totally fell off my radar.

But I’m getting it done now.

Their reason was straightforward, “Since it’s basically only people in the Top 50 in each age group who make it to the Games, can you tell us what the average scores were in each Open WOD for people who finished in the top 50?”

Answer – yes.

Other answer – I know, the WODs we see this year will not be the WODs we see next year (except for 16.5 – that’s for sure coming back). And the people competing will be different next year. And some people who were in 60th place after the Open did great in the Master’s Qualifier and made it to the Games.

Quit nitpicking. It’s a game. We play it. Hopefully we enjoy it. Here are the average scores by WOD and by Age Group for the 50 people who finished in the top 50 in their age groups. Yes, I meant to say it that way….

So tired… didn’t sleep much. Not sure why, but I was awake long before my alarm was supposed to go off at 4:30am. Nice not to have alarm buzzing and waking up my wife when she doesn’t need to be up. Not as nice to be awake at 4:00am for no reason.

Snatch complex – work up to heavy weight and then 3 sets: snatch pull, below the knee hang power snatch, OHS, behind the neck snatch grip push press, snatch balance. Not even going to list the weight I worked up. Got it done because that is what we do, but it was not pretty.

Pull-up complex – 8 sets: 4 toes-2-bar, 3 pullups, 2 chest-2-bar, 1 bar muscle up. Continuous if possible but focus on form, so break as needed. T2B – sets of 4 are an afterthought. Transitioning straight to pullups was harder than I expected. Hadn’t tried that before. Had to pause and then get started. C2B – was able to get the height with buttefly but couldn’t get range of motion (i.e. my chest to hit the bar). Still, getting C2B height is an improvement! Bar muscle ups – really nasty today. I was way too tired for these.

Did 7 complete rounds. On the 8th round I ripped a huge chunk out of my palm during T2B and decided to call it.

No lifting technique today. Wednesdays are supposed to be my no technique work day, but schedule was all screwed up. In all honesty, my quest to get significantly better is gated more on my ability to juggle life than my ability to lift more and go faster. Seriously, the lift more and go faster bit is the EASY part. Did I really just write that?

For time: 50 double unders every time I break, 30 second unweighted Chinese plank.
Not gonna lie. My only goal was 50 consecutive double unders. End of story. I was going to hit 50 today or bust. First attempt – stumbled at 3 reps. Oh hell no. Do over.

2nd attempt – broke at 30 reps, happened to be 30 seconds. Dropped into a regular plank because all benches were being sat on by our new Oly group. At 1:00 I started again. Didn’t give a damn that I only had 20 reps to go. Blew through that and got to 50. Broke at 53. New double under PR!

Was using my good rope which helped a lot.

Gwen, 15-12-9, clean and jerk, unbroken touch-and-go sets, regrip only when bar is NOT on the ground. Coach wanted me to increase load each round.

15 @ 115#. Felt good. Harder than I expected for the last 5 reps. Kept doing that pause at my knee though, so they were all basically hang cleans.

12 @ 125#. Focussed on smooth bar path, so that was better. Did not focus on regripping each rep, so my grip was really toasty. Last 3 reps were not pretty.

DAMN!!!! Dubs were totally on point. So good to be able to break out sets of 20 instead of 1 and then 4 and then 2….

It was a good WOD for me. Long (19:07), with a heavy dumbbell snatch and some aerobic burner stuff. Wallballs work in that vein as do the dubs. It was also nice to be the only person going Rx. Bit of an ego boost.

Great stuff. Now working all day while my family cruises Sonoma, hits the town, farmers market and such.